Category: Shinichiro Watanabe and the power of creative diversity

Director Shinichiro Watanabe is undeniably one of the most celebrated names working in the anime industry today. With his first original work Cowboy Bebop having become an undisputed classic since its release in 1998 – not least due to it being a major steppingstone in the popularization of anime in the west – he has since gained cult status and seen widespread acclaim among fans and critics alike. While Watanabe at this point has a number of works under his belt, all of which have been met with mainly positive response, there are three particular ones that stick out; the aforementioned Cowboy Bebop, its 2004 follow-up Samurai Champloo, and the 2014 series Space Dandy.Read More »

1998 saw the birth of Shinichiro Watanabe’s main directorial debut Cowboy Bebop. Having started off as a household episode director and storyboard artist for various Sunrise shows since the mid-80s, Watanabe first gained recognition in 1994 as the co-director for the largely celebrated Macross Plus OVA, a job which he had received after encountering mecha designer and Macross franchise creator Shoji Kawamori during the production of the Gundam OVA 0083: Stardust Memory from 1991. This then resulted in Sunrise giving him the opportunity for his own first original project, which in 1998 came in the form of Cowboy Bebop. While Watanabe’s only given instruction for the series was that he could create whatever he wanted as long as it included a spaceship – due to Sunrise’s sponsorship with the Bandai company’s toy division – it however quickly became Read More »

In 2004, Watanabe followed up Cowboy Bebop with his second original work Samurai Champloo. Being the very first show to come out from studio Manglobe, one of two studios (the other being Bones) that around the millennium shift got formed by ex-Sunrise members, Watanabe was once again given entirely free creative rein. Along with him from the Bebop team came both Dai Sato and Keiko Nobumoto working as scriptwriters, as well as storyboard artists Kazuki Akane and Tensai Okamura, among a few others. Just like with his previous show, Watanabe once more created a project where an extensive amount of creative staff members came together in all various departments, creating a series with all sorts of stylistic nuances and a comparatively high production value. Many of these staff people had either prior to or have upon the series grown to become acclaimed creators inRead More »

For the next ten years after Samurai Champloo, Watanabe would work on a number of various projects, many of which also saw both major and minor involvements from the staff members of his two original shows. Perhaps his most recognized work during this period was as the director for a 2012 adaptation of the jazz-oriented manga Sakamichi no Apollon, to which Yoko Kanno provided the music. But he also worked as a storyboard artist for the 2006 show Ergo Proxy – which both Dai Sato and Sayo Yamamoto were involved in – as well as the music producer for Yamamoto’s two directorial works Michiko to Hatchin (2008) and Lupin III: A Woman Called Fujiko Mine (2012), among many others. It wasn’t until 2014 though that Watanabe would get together with studio Bones alongside Sato, Yamamoto, Kanno and Nobumoto – all of which at this point were more or less collaborating veterans – for the creation of Space Dandy.Read More »